MEET THE FAM

Green Valley Farm + Mill's team includes second and third generation Sonoma County residents and Bay Area sustainability experts. The group brings a depth of experience to all aspects of management, from the built environment to beyond organic farming. Read on to learn more about this consortium of folks who tie the pieces together.

Scott Kelley - Facilities Manager. Scott is fixer of all things at Green Valley. A former artist, and Jack of All Trades, Scott brings to the table a memorized map of the land, including the location of underground water lines as well as where the meadow foam first comes up in the Spring. He has a background in mechanics and construction and has thrived in tending to the daily needs of Green Valley for over 7 years.

Descending from a long line of farmers and ranchers, Scott is continuing his heritage by raising cattle and milking cows on the land with his partner Aubrie.

Aubrie Maze - Farm & Land Manager. Aubrie has dedicated her life to the traditional arts of land-based skills. With a background in herbal medicine and animal husbandry, Aubrie weaves the lives of humans with our essential, connective and productive relationship with plants and animals here at Green Valley. Aubrie has spent the past ten years living in intentional communities, gaining deep knowledge of the internal structures that support such communities, and has dedicated her organizational skills to helping them thrive.

Having lived for on the land for 7+ years, Aubrie continues to deepen her relationship to this land by raising animals alongside her partner Scott Kelley.

email. aubrie at gvfam.com

Jeff Mendelsohn - Financial Manager. is the founder and chair of New Leaf Paper, a company with the mission of driving a fundamental shift toward sustainability in the paper industry—one of the most resource-intensive industries in the world. Jeff has been recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the 30 top social entrepreneurs. New Leaf was awarded Best for the Environment among all B Corporations for the last three years running.

Jeff has actively contributed to the growth of the sustainable business community over the last 20 years through public speaking, guest lecturing at leading business schools, and ongoing engagement in sustainable business forums such as Social Venture Network. He calls Green Valley home and brings his skills to the table to ensure that the land thrives.

email. jeff.mendelsohn at gvfam.com

Josiah Raison Cain, Land & Conservation Manager. Josiah developed a keen interest in sustainable design at an early age and founded a sustainable design and build company soon after college. He received an MA Design Engineers as Director of Innovation.

Josiah’s skills include the development and implementation of a wide variety of ecological design applications including food systems, green roofs, living walls, rainwater harvesting, graywater, blackwater, biofiltration. He has managed habitat restoration planning and implementation for a variety of clients including civic, institutional, commercial, and residential and excels at landscape design, organic farm master planning, mixed use redevelopment, and district infrastructure. Josiah is in charge of Green Valley's master plan as well as leading ecological restoration and development.

email. raison at gvfam.com

Kayta Brady - Farmer. Kayta and her partner David, below, are Green Valley's CSA farmers and provide weekly boxes of diverse farm foods to their members. Katya grew up in Columbia, Missouri and studied Ecology and Visual Art at Bennington College in Vermont. You can see some of her artwork in their farm's logo and on her website. She has worked and WWOOFed on several farms in the U.S. and Germany and even ran a small bakery in Williamstown, MA before apprenticing at Caretaker Farm in 2012 where she and David met. Caretaker Farm is one of the oldest CSA farms in the U.S. and the inspiration for their you-pick style of CSA where members get to choose what goes in their box. She and David, below, began breaking ground in fall of 2016 and started their first season as Green Valley Community Farm in 2017. You can learn more about their farm by visiting the farm website.

David Plescia - Farmer. David grew up in the Santa Clara Valley climbing up fruit trees and roller blading. He studied East Asian Buddhism and Music at UC Santa Barbara, helped build a Buddhist pagoda and meandered around South America before finding his way to La Granja Valle Pintado, an off-the-grid biodynamic CSA in Patagonia, Argentina. Farming put the pieces together and as he read about Caretaker Farm by candlelight he decided that this was his next step. At Caretaker he met Kayta and the inspiration for Green Valley Community Farm was born. Today David and Kayta are getting their feet wet as farmers at Green Valley. Their model parallels the mission of Green Valley - reconnecting people with land. Their CSA gets people in the field and gives them the option of eating, and picking if they so choose, the foods they love most.

Temra Costa, Operations Manager / Nonprofit Lead. Temra is a sustainable food and farming advocate and the award-winning author of Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat. She is a marketing and communications specialist with a focus on sustainability in the natural foods sector (think Clif Bar, Numi Inc., and Amy's Kitchen). Prior to this work, she managed California's premiere Buy Fresh, Buy Local program, one of the original local food marketing campaigns part of making 'local' a household name.

Temra manages the overarching operations of Green Valley, its nonprofit and its storytelling and outreach.

email. temra at gvfam.com

Jeremy Fisher, Built Environment Manager. Jeremy is husband to Temra and father of their two boys, Teo and Quin. He was born in an off-the-grid community in the Cazadero hills of Sonoma County. He holds a MS in Architecture from UC Berkeley and is a master builder and construction project manager. While at Berkeley, he researched deep energy retrofits at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Jeremy was the managing director at Hyphae Design Laboratory, an ecological design firm, and is currently managing the development of a sustainable rum facility in Belize, a restaurant build out in Oakland and several design/build projects with local green building pioneer Bruce Hammond and Company.

With over 15-years of experience managing multi-million dollar ecological design and construction projects, Jeremy is the perfect lead to manage onsite infrastructure and renovation at Green Valley. His goal is to create an exemplary, well-designed, energy-efficient, and beautiful community to call home. When he has time, you can find him happily designing and building furniture.